Across the Sea, Somewhere

— and Adelaide was surrounded by darkness, she couldn’t see anything, but she could hear screaming, something had gone wrong, where had she gone —

And then she saw the stars, and a waning moon on the horizon. And then her eyes kept adjusting and she realized — “It’s night,” she said to no one in particular.

Only then did she realize the screaming had come from the other passengers and crew. Trish was still screaming, and she thought she heard Emma and Alessio calming themselves down. Even with the sliver of moonlight, it was staggeringly dark, and Adelaide wondered if the ship had any —

“Lights on! Mr. Whitworth, the lights! Mr. Grinston, kill the engines!” Captain Mattson yelled. And then lights set into the railes flashed on, and Adelaide’s eyes had to adjust the other way.

Once she had stopped blinking, Adelaide saw that everyone was, fundamentally, alright. But even the crew seemed to be catching their breath a bit. Adelaide looked at Ray, who was looking down at the water. She said, haltingly, “I didn’t realize — I never thought about the possibility that it would be night.”

Ray smiled his small smile. “It always takes you by surprise. But it’s supposed to be good luck, they say. And it gets the blood pumping.”

Trish wandered over and grabbed Adelaide by the hand. “Ade, did we just travel in time? No one mentioned we could travel in time - do we know what year it is? How do we know what year it will be when we get back?”

Adelaide tried not to catch Ray’s eye. “We didn’t travel in time, honey.”

“But it was the morning and now it’s night!”

“Remember, we are somewhere totally new. Why would it be the same time zone?”

Trish paused at that. “Oh. I guess that does make sense. I feel silly for not thinking of that.”

“Don’t - it didn’t occur to me either. But Ray says it’s lucky!”

“We can definitely use luck. Wow, look at those stars!”

Adelaide followed Trish’s gaze upwards. Even with the ship’s lights on, there were a staggering number of stars visible. It made sense, given that they were presumably the only source of light pollution in the world. “They’re beautiful.”

“Yeah, but it’s so weird not to have any of the constellations! You’d almost think this could just be the middle of a random ocean, but the stars are all in the wrong place.”

Adelaide hadn’t noticed that, although she’d known it was coming. Almost as soon as people went through the Triangle, they’d tried to use the stars to figure out where they were. What they’d found was that the stars they saw didn’t match the constellations from anywhere on earth. Nor was the Triangle’s sky consistent; just like the islands and the wildlife, the stars were never exactly the same, although the Astronomers who had gone through purported to see some particular stellar bodies recur. Triangle astronomy had apparently created a schism in the astronomer community, with some scientists seeing it as a distraction to the study of the stellar bodies in the Earth’s actual sky and others seeing it as a chance to better understand fundamental dynamics of stellar bodies.

Adelaide herself was no astronomer, and she didn’t even have Trish’s sense of the constellations. But the sky was .. off, now that she looked at it. The few constellations she could recognize, like the Big Dipper and Orion, were obviously missing. But stranger were the things that felt like they would have to be constellations if they were in the normal sky. Like those seven bright stars in a line - that would definitely be something, right? And that clump of reddish stars near the horizon - was that something that could even happen normally?

Ray cleared his throat and tried to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, everybody - they always say night entries are lucky, so we’re off to a good start. You’re welcome to stay here or to head below decks. Emma, catch up with me for a second so we can discuss meal timing - while everyone can eat whenever, we’ll try to space things out so that we’re on something resembling a normal schedule by the time the sun sets tomorrow. So let’s pace ourselves - no need to be falling asleep at noon. Other than that, make sure to alert me or the Captain if you need anything or see anything of interest. Remember, no one has ever been here before, and we’ll all need to keep each other informed.”

Percy nodded at Adelaide and headed back down below deck. Before Adelaide could move to follow him, Trish stopped her.

“Ade, I wanted to thank you for this. For bringing me with you.”

“Of course!”

“No, really. I know I haven’t done stuff like this before, but I think this will be great! Something really new, right?”

“It’s definitely new.”

“Exactly! Anyway, I’m going to get some sort of like … night brunch? Something like that. See ya!”

As Trish walked away, the Captain approached. “So! Now that we are through, I trust you have our course?”

“No, not yet - I thought Ray had explained.”

“He told me that you would be dictating our course based on ‘some science thing’ and that you’d tell me what we were doing once we arrived.”

Adelaide looked over at Ray. Even though she could only see the back of his head against the dark sea, she knew he was very deliberately not turning around.

“It’s - it’s a bit more complicated than that. Percy’s working on it, but it’ll probably take a couple hours. He’ll come find me once it’s done, and I’ll go to you, ok?”

The Captain nodded. “I hate to waste the time, but it is hard to travel before our first sunrise. But come to me as soon as you have direction.”

Adelaide knew she should sleep - almost everyone else had apparently headed to their rooms already. It was going to be a long day, and there wasn’t anything to do until Percy finished his calculations. If she could take even a quick nap, she’d be more awake when the new sun rose and they’d have to begin.

But Adelaide couldn’t look away from the water. Other than the stars, it was impossible to tell it apart from any other night on the open ocean, but Adelaide knew that it was unique. Nobody had ever seen these waves before. Well, actually, every wave was in some sense new, but these felt like they had been made just for her.

And so she sat, looking out at the horizon, unaware how much time was passing or when she’d get hungry enough to grab something to eat. Her head was almost clear of thought when she saw something move through the darkness and hit the water with a splash. “Whoa!” escaped her mouth automatically.

One of the crew ran over to her, a young man with curly hair cut short who was a bit taller than she was. “What happened?”

“I saw something fall into the water from the sky.”

“Like hail?”

“No, more like — I think it was a bird of some kind? It looked like an eagle diving for a fish.”

“Could be. We’ll keep an eye open for another.”

“I wonder, though, how anything could see a fish from way up in the air in so little light. It must either have eyes the size of dinner plates or using something other than light to sense them.”

“Sounds like a very interesting bird.”

“I mean, it could be anything. But I wonder what would drive a bird to evolve to hunt at night - competition from other predators during the day? But that seems unlikely all the way out here.”

“Who says they evolved?”

Adelaide looked at him, “You don’t believe in evolution?”

He laughed. “Back home, sure. But who says the Seas use the same system? Hell, who says they even have a past? For all we know, these just spring into existence the moment we go through.”

Adelaide thought for a second. “Have you seen things that make you suspect that possibility? Any ecosystems that couldn’t have lasted?”

“I’m not sure - it’s not like we normally have time to explore whole biomes.”

“I suppose it could be - maybe we’ll find out, although I can’t imagine how. I’m sorry, I was so caught up in that, I forgot to ask your name.”

“Grant, ma’am. Good to finally be introduced,”

“Please don’t call me ma’am. How long have you been sailing on the Strider?”

“Two years.”

“Any tips for those of us on out first trip out?”

“Simple stuff - remember to stay hydrated and to eat regularly even when it’s busy or interesting. Trust your instincts. But no real secret advice. You have to remember - it’s the first time here for all of us.”